Library to waive non-resident membership fees for Batchewana, Garden River (5 council briefs)

Garden River and Batchewana First Nation will get free memberships at Sault Ste. Marie's public libraries in 2022, City Council learned this week.

"As part of national truth and reconciliation, the library will be giving free membership to residents of Garden River and Batchewana First Nation, first nations members and Métis Council," Rosanne Chan, the library's business administrator, told a council budget meeting.

Anyone who doesn't live in Sault Ste. Marie, or whose primary residence is outside the city and they don't pay city property taxes, must pay for a non-resident library membership.

The fee for an annual non-resident card is $45 for adults and $30 for seniors.

Non-resident students are allowed to use the Sault's libraries for free.

The same is true for Aweres, Goulais and district, Searchmont, Tarbutt and Tarbutt Additional, Laird Township and MacDonald, Meredith & Aberdeen, all of which have contracted with the Sault for library services.

Other news from this week's Sault Ste. Marie City Council meeting:

• at the request of Ward 3 Coun. Matthew Shoemaker and Ward 5's Matthew Scott, councillors decided to increase the landfill tipping fee for non-residents by $23 a metric tonne. They'll now pay $100 a tonne, compared to $77 for city residents. "There has to be some benefit to being from Sault Ste. Marie when it comes to paying for municipal services," Shoemaker said. 
• Shelley Schell, the city's chief financial officer and treasurer, promised that future increases in user fees will be rounded up to the nearest nickel. Coun. Shoemaker asked for the change, indicating that, as SooToday pointed out last weekend, Canada stopped issuing pennies a decade ago
• councillors approved an 87.5 per cent increase in the cost of Brownie and Girl Guide sleepover badge programs at the city-owned Ermatinger-Clergue National Historic Site. Brent Lamming, director of community services argued that the hike to $75 a sleepover is "about cost recovery." The facility must supply two programmers at such events, plus building security, meals and crafts
• Sault Ste. Marie Public Library is planning to expand its online resources in 2022, offering free access to more than 3,000 magazines through the Overdrive app